Let's also not forget the warmongering chickenhawkery, or the emotive revolutionary bluster we hear from "conservatives" any time some policy is enacted that they dislike (forgetting, always, the Biblical admonition to submit to authority). Their revolutionary impulse easily matches that of the left, which I suppose stands to reason; but the left is at least honest about its revolutionary ambitions, as history has amply demonstrated.

These are the people who, in the interests of fighting the really important battles of making sure we get payroll tax cuts that offer people like me a whopping $8 a biweekly paycheck, have agreed to shut up about our ongoing abortion holocaust, or at least agree to do nothing really serious to put an end to it. And who cheer, in the interests of supporting the troops, the taxpayer-subsidized glorification of sodomy.

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My children and I will live in an increasingly hellish environment, thanks to the treachery and fecklessness of the last couple of generations of "conservatives" and their partners in crime, the "liberals." They had everything, good society, increasingly good pay and benefits. Now they collect several paychecks from the government, while belittling those "welfare deadbeats," and cheering for Palin, Insane McCain, Romney, Perry, et al. They simply don't care about anyone but themselves. They have sacrificed their own children to the Tower of Babel project. That is how they will be remembered.

This note is not specifically relevant to the current post, but relates to your post of the 20th inst., which seems some time ago now.

You say (December 20, 2011, The Crisis of Modernity is the Falseness of Modernity),

‘There are only two options: to return to that which is normative, historical, spontaneous, and organic, that is, to religion, to the traditional family, and various other institutions; or else to soldier on ahead, dropping only those parts of the modern condition that clearly cannot be salvaged (You go on to identify this stance with Postmodernism, etc.)’

Here you speak of only two alternatives.

I disagree. I believe there are more than two ways.

For instance, the position I myself hold at present recognises that the world has its origin in Spirit rather than matter, yet, at the same time, it acknowledges that earlier dispensations of truth, though suitable for their time and place, are no longer entirely relevant for our present situation: so much has changed between now and the first century.

Yes, I’ll admit I could be accused of mere adjustment to the worst of modern culture, but this by no means has to be so, and it certainly isn’t my own approach, or why should I so regularly follow the Orthosphere, and with such admiration for many of the stands it takes?

Again, I foresee that your main argument against my approach would probably be centred on the need for an unchanging incorruptible authority and the slippery slope of innovation from the standpoint of ignorance, using a corrupt understanding under the influence of sin, etc. I take such arguments seriously, but do not see them as insuperable.

And of course, I have a sheaf of arguments with which to defend my position, among them that traditions inevitably accrue corruptions, that we have God-given discernment with which to choose between lesser and greater goods, and that there exist different traditions, each claiming authenticity but differing in their basic beliefs - so which is the true tradition anyway?

Below I list just a few aspects of my own understanding in this third way which I fancy would differ from your own, and then a further set of principles in which I think we stand together.

As you read these, you may assume I am some sort of ‘New Ager’, but I assure you I live far more in the spirit of an English gentleman than that of a Californian hippy.

I am horrified and saddened by many innovations and approaches of the modern church, and, for instance would have maintained the use of the common Prayer Book and the Authorised version of the Bible.

Some of my beliefs whichI presume differ from those of the Orthosphere:

Christianity is not the only way to ‘salvation’.

There is reincarnation.

There is no everlasting hell.

We are each sparks of the Infinite: our essential self is perfect.

Homosexuality, abortion, etc. are not necessarily sins, but can arise from the nature of the being.

Some of my beliefs which I presume agree with those of the Orthosphere:

Christ is the most important spiritual guide for our time and place.

Christ is greater than merely human.

Evolution is intelligently guided.

Spirit is causal, matter an effect of Spirit.

There are ‘higher’ worlds which communicate with and guide us.

I would of course be interested in your response. This is because I wish to test my own understanding, and also because I remain open to be convinced of the dreadful error of my ways.

1. The hypocrite conservatives. These are numerous among our political and journalist elite. They beat their chests talking about family values while they are in their third marriage or have a mistress on the side.

These include the guys who are only interested in money and favoring the rich. They use the Religious Right only to get votes and then they forget anything about religion.

2. The deluded conservatives. These are people who are right in finding something amiss in modernity. But they have been brainwashed from birth with the ideals of Enlightenment and leftist ideas. So they know the problem but they misdiagnose the causes and they claim for wrong solutions.

They are complementary. As they say in Mexico, "To have an asshole, you need a moron" ("para que haya un cabrón, se necesita un pendejo").

The problem with conservatism is that it is only the rearguard of liberalism. That is, at any moment in time, you could take a conservative, put him into the time machine, get him 20 years earlier in time and the same guy would be a liberal (if you could get him 40 years earlier, he would be a radical). This works the other way too: today's liberals are tomorrow's conservatives.

A conservative is one who wants to preserve the last wave of liberal revolution while refusing to accept the new wave of liberal revolution.

This is because conservatives accept the playing field of the Enlightenment. If you accept these assumptions, liberal ideal is the logic conclusion. So conservatives cannot have any model or ideal to fight for and move in direction to. They only try to stop the change. And this is impossible.

I think Chesterton summarized it nicely: "The business of progressives is to go on making mistakes; the business of conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."

Though, as modernity advances, we are becoming more and more polarized, so 'nuanced' and 'moderate' positions like conservatism and liberalism are being abandoned. In the end, people will have to choose between being materialistic progressives vs. religious reactionaries. Either/Or.

Interesting comments. Re: conservatism; reminds me of what 19th century Robert L. Dabney supposedly said, "Conservatism is merely the shadow of radicalism(today's lib/progism)as they both go off into perdition".

Conservatism only conserves it's own blindness.

"Spirit is causal; matter an effect of spirit" Spirit is initiation/ the visible realm of matter, space, and time, is response to initiation. The heavens and earth of Genesis.

@Dirichlet - excellent comment. I think this is exactly what is happening.

Nuanced/ 'reasonable'/ sensible/ moderate positions are continually being absorbed into Leftism/ Liberalism/ Political Correctness by default UNLESS the person takes a deep breath, makes a leap into extreme, beyond the pale, reactionary views - and steps out into the unknown.

So we have a vast and expanding mass of Leftism versus ever smaller and more dwindling groups of ever-more isolated reactionaries. This applies in Christianity, as elsewhere.